Conquer

It would probably have settled down 3 months after my 'trip' but I took Ritalin to study once which didn't help. Also started drinking 4 months after onset. Dunno if those have anything to do with it, but right now when I am stressed I still get some flare ups. Also since I blacked out drunk 2 weeks ago my vision has kinda gotten like how it was 2 months ago when I was still in the midst of it but recovering (it is still better now than then), though whether that's due to alcohol, an acute lack of sleep, or major stress from school I am not sure. I'm not stressed about the vision though, after going through hell and then experiencing perfectly normal vision in the past month, I am very confident it will return back to normal with sleep and less stress.

Well, perma-drunk without the euphoria. With the euphoria it wouldn't be so bad haha.

Oh also, having experienced drunk vision as one of my symptoms, sometimes after I drink I worry that the next day I am still drunk. My worst fear is being perma-drunk without alcohol, if that makes any sense. I haven't experienced anything like hat but I just want to make sure that's not possible. And yes, I know the best way to avoid that is to not drink, I'm working on it.

I used to take Ritalin before I had ghosting without issue. However, I made the mistake of taking it once after my symptoms had been steadily fading away. When I took it the ghosting was way, way worse. The next day it settled down some. However, whether duets school-related stress or something else, I still have some ghosting that's worse than before I took Ritalin. Again, it could be stress related or something, but be careful.

Congrats man!

I have a weird (or perhaps not so weird) experience to report. Let's rewind to 3 months ago. My hppd and dr were really bad, and I experienced ghosting and my vision was like being drunk (common side effect of DR). I had been sober for 3 months prior (I got this shit from my second dxm trip 2 months before this incident), with only minor improvements (it fluctuated). I had previously stayed away from alcohol, as it was a NMDA receptor antagonist just as DXM was. However, I was at my wit's end with this vuisual shit, the most annoying bit being the constant drunk vision while sober. I figured, fuck it, I'm just gonna drink some alcohol with my friends and see what happens, kind of out of morbid curiosity to see what would happen to my 'drunk vision.' So one night I took about 4-5 shots of Vodka with a buddy. My vision got even more spinny and I spent the entire drunk being anxious about my vision. I went to bed that night scared that I permanently fucked something up. I woke up that morning super anxious and my vision was still pretty spinny. I informed my friend of this, who noted that his vision was still spinny too now that he paid attention to it, and told me that I was just paranoid and paying too close attention to minor details (I now think he was right). That night after experiencing immense anxiety from this I just said fuck it, I'm done worrying, I can't handle stressing out. I enjoyed the rest of my night with family. The next day the spinny vision shit that was pl bothering me was almost completely gone, and I felt free! I began paying less attention to it and eventually it and my dr were like 99% gone (if not completely gone). Since then I have been drinking with my buddies with increasing frequency, and occasianly I still worry (hence me seeking out this thread, I'm considering drinking a bit with friends.) Anyway, was this proof that this was all in my head (not the ghosting though, I still see that)? Or perhaps there was actually something at work here chemically?

How are you doing?

Interesting question. I'm guessing you already scoured the internet for related-research papers and found nothing. In that case you're limited to anecdotal reports from others. I've never heard of anyone getting these disorders with no family history of them. Honestly I don't think you have any cause for concern.

I like it when people update their threads with their progress, so I will do the same. The buzzing and pressure in my head is gone (thinking about it now however kind of makes it come back, though not as strong) I have some tingling but that is likely due to stress. Speaking of which, last night I was really stressed out as I was doing work, I was almost panicking. I noticed that my head began tingling/buzzing the more panicky I got. Thankfully it stopped as soon as my stress level dropped. Clearly the stress caused the tingling/buzzing. However, I don't know if that explains the pressure in my head earlier, but overall I'm just happy at the improvement. Unfortunately my visual symptoms like ghosting have remained flared up, which is disappointing and frustrating as they were almost gone. I can only hope that given a few more months they too will dissipate.

My ghosting only happens (or is only noticable) within a 6ft radius of me. Is that the same for anyone else? Also, it only happens for objects in movement, and usually only if I'm moving relative to them.

Do you think you can ever go back to feeling the way you did before?

My head pressure is still there somewhat, but I didn't really notice it today until I read this thread. Even then it took me a few moments before I started feeling it. Now it's back and pulsing lol. So try to distract yourself I guess.

Sorry to hear. What's your HPPD like man?

I did DXM once out of curiosity and got relatively light HPPD. The fuck man. Did anyone else here get it from DXM? If so I'm curious what your visuals are like, I personally have ghosting and possible light trailers (only occurs within a radius of 6ft of me thankfully).

Yea E30 M3's are like $20k, which is how much E46 M3's sell for lol. I do sometimes worry that my absent-mindness (started like 2 months after initial trip) due to some residual DP/DR might make it hard to concentrate on driving. In fact, I wonder how all my reflexes have been affected and if they are different compared to how they were before.

I wanted to get into racing with my 300ZX (specifically auto-X), unfortunately my Z was involved in an accident. Currently saving up for a new car. I definitely would not mind an E30 M3, great cars.

My speech itself is fine and hasn't been directly affected, however this shit made social interaction way harder, which sometimes in social awkwardness. During these periods I observe my speech very carefully as others have noticed, which can lead to fuckups. I also sometimes have trouble not talking in a monotone, but that only appeared around the time I started using Ritalin (before any of this).

Glad to hear things are better man! And yea, the DP can be a real pain in the ass, but it is definitely 100% beatable.

Bumping this topic out of curiosity, does everyone with HPPD have brain fog?

Ha, at one point I was seriously afraid of going completely insane - these thoughts manifested themselves in the form of two crazy dreams, just like you. In both I ended up completely losing itand a lot of my fears played themselves out in these dreams. I also experienced really weird and non-sensical thoughts as I as trying to fall asleep, kind of like the ones you might have during a really bad fever. However, that fear of insanity has faded away and so have the negative dreams and thoughts.

I will never take it again, that's for sure. Uh, it was like acute DP/DR. Since both of those have been fading away I guess it was kind of a shock to have them come back. But it was like walking around with acute memory loss, everything was a tad hazy and my vision was somewhat drunk-like. I am very happy to say that today I am feeling much better. The heavy feeling in my head has partially subsided, and I only feel it in the back of my head now. Hopefully given some more time it will completely dissipate. Caffeine started your DP? Did you get a panic attack? Also, thank you for the responses guys, I appreciate them!

Cool, welcome!

Yea, I've been having some really good weeks recently. These past 3 weeks I actually had no visual problems and my DP/DR was practically gone, which makes this recent development all the more upsetting to me. Btw, <3 E30's.

Oh yea, I should probably list what other drugs I've taken: 1) Salvia 4x times in a month (two years ago, no aftereffects) 2) LSD 1x time (one year ago, barely did anything for me and no aftereffects) 3) Weed (started smoking two years ago, I only smoked during summers with friends, no aftereffects) Also, let me add that I really don't care about the visuals. I can tune them out and ignore them. However, what I am concerned about is my cognitive abilites, and in my previous post I noted that I feel 'out of it' and that my head feels heavy (possibly due to oversleeping?), which combined make me feel a little confused and absent-minded.

Hey guys, I've been lurking this forum since February, but I've never actually posted. Let me start off by giving some background on myself: First off, I'd been taking Ritalin on and off for about 6 months prior to 'the incident.' However, I noticed that after long periods of use (daily for a month) I would begin to feel socially awkward, and I also noticed that I was also becoming addicted to the rush that it provides. I decided to stop taking it and quit cold turkey in the middle of February this year. Unfortunately I found this period of 'soberness' to be somewhat boring, and after hanging around on a drug website for a few weeks I got the brilliant idea to take DXM. I initially took about 60-100mg of DXM poli, which got me a stimulant buzz for about 30 minutes. Dissapointed, I decided to do it again, this time in a higher dosage. I waited a week before I took a bottle of pure DXM, which was about 350mg. The trip ended up lasting longer than I expected, which caused me a great deal of anxiety. The next day I found that my vision was still messed up (I now know this was due to derealization disorder, something which DXM can cause). That week I had intense anxiety and depression, and I was very, very close to the edge. However, I'm thankful to say that I stuck through it. My DP/DR symptoms began to fade, and I felt more and more normal. I still had visual distortions though - not ones caused by DR, but stand-alone distortions which I attribute to the DXM. I had ghosting (I would see the ghostly outline of edges projected a few inches from the actual edge) and possible palinopsa. Interestingly, these distortions only occured within a 6ft radius of me. Anyway, I went to the opthamologist and he said everything looked fine, so I believe it's neurological. Since these visual distortions didn't bother me too much, I just said 'fuck it' and went about my daily life. My DP/DR continued to fade and I began to tune out my visual distortions (that or they were actually fading away). However, about 1.5 months ago I had a really stressful day, and my visual distortions were more noticable. I decided to blow off the stress by jogging around my neighborhood - bad call, as I was way out of shape. As I practically sprinted around my neighborhood, my heart struggled to keep up and my visuals got way, way worse. An hour after I came back my visuals were still horrible from the excercise, which initiated a panic attack. This panic attack initiated insomnia, which has resulted in very low levels of sleep (4-6 hours of sleep a night). However, since then the visuals faded, and a few weeks later they were either completely gone or I had just stopped noticing them. Now to the present day. 2 days ago (Thursday) I had to study for a test, but my lack of sleep made it difficult to concentrate. I stupidly decided to take 2x doses of 15mg Ritalin spaced by about 4 hours (this was my prescribed dose). I noticed that while on the Ritalin, my visuals got way, way worse. I also smoked a cig that night and got mild nicotine poisoning (I had quit smoking at the same time I stopped taking Ritalin, so trying to smoke a full cig all of a sudden was too much). Whereas previously my ghosting would only cause 1 ghost edge to pop up, I now had several. This caused me to pay attention to my vision more, and I noticed that I now had slight trailers (only for objects close to me though). You know how if you light up an LED in a dark room and wave it around, you can still see a light trail behind? It was almost like that (not as bad) but it occurred for all objects (no trails if I looked directly at the object I was waving around, though). I woke up the next day after 3 hours of sleep and felt normal, even noting that my head, which sometimes felt heavy, was completely normal. However my heart rate jumped up to 100bpm and my head went back to feeling slightly heavy. The reason that I have waited so long to post here is that I really had no reason to until now. I could easily live with my visual distortions, and my DP/DR was also fading away. However, I am now worried that the Ritalin has impeded my progress or exacerbated my situation. I woke up this morning feeling 'out of it' and my head feels heavy and unclear (the 'out of it' feeling didn't develop until yesterday afternoon). Can someone shed some light on my situation? I have this sinking feeling that I just took a step back in my road to recovery. Cliffnotes: - Took DXM 3 months ago, got light HPPD as well as DP/DR - DP/DR has been fading away these past 3 months - HPPD was fading away, but severe lack of sleep recently has stalled its progress - Took Ritalin two days ago, made my visuals worse while on it, the visuals are now not as bad but still possibly worse (dunno, hard to quantitatively measure them) - Woke up today feeling heavy-headed and 'out of it,' worried about cognitive effects